In the first week of summer, dozens of homes have been destroyed in bushfires; at Dolphin Sands in Tasmania, on the New South Wales Central Coast, and at Bulahdelah, north of Newcastle where a firefighter also died.  

A local builder at Koolewong in New South Wales noted that a recently constructed home, built to modern fire safety standards, was left standing while others around it burned to the ground. 

Today, the ABC’s Central Coast reporter Sarah Forster on the homes that were lost in Saturday’s fire and an expert on building houses in high bushfire risk areas.

Featured: 

Sarah Forster, ABC Central Coast reporter 

Colin Wood, member of the Standards Australia committee for the construction of buildings in bushfire-prone areas